


and if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born

by zenstrike



Series: you’re lucky that’s what i like [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ELABORATE HEADCANONS RE: ADAM LMAO, Established Relationship, Family, Growing Up, Keith (Voltron)-centric, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, POV Keith (Voltron), Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Vague References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 15:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15844218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: “Shiro said you’re moving in with the boy.”“Did he?” Keith turned away, arms crossed. He surveyed his bedroom: the books, still organized but collecting dust; his battered desk covered in photos and stickers; his heavy curtains, pulled aside to let the afternoon sun through. It felt cozy. He was happy to be home.He missed Lance. Like there was something missing just under his skin so that he felt a little bit smaller, a little thinner.—-The summer before their second year, Keith and Lance move in together.





	and if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born

**Author's Note:**

> uh hmmm uh uh... well
> 
> basically my only defense for this is that i’m trying to lay the groundwork for who keith is in this au aldjfaldkjfads
> 
> mmm i’ll fix the formatting sometime soon but ao3 is giving me a headache so i’ll leave it for now.
> 
> Edit:  
> I guess I should add that I’ve increased the apparent age difference between Shiro and the rest of the Paladins because I Can Do What I Want.

Adam crammed a hat onto Keith’s head.

“He’s an adult,” Shiro muttered, scratching his chin.

“What even is this?” Keith grumbled, rubbing at the canvas and then toying with the floppy brim. “Is it your gardening hat?”

“Do I look like I garden?” Adam batted away Keith’s hands and crammed the hat more firmly around his head. “Excuse me for rescuing you from inevitable brain cookage and a sunburn.”

Shiro had the audacity to laugh. Adam and Keith looked at him. He stared up at the sky, humming like he was innocent.

“Let’s go,” Adam said with a huff and led the way down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and shoulders just slightly hunched.

“Are you guys back together?” Keith asked before he could think better of it.

“Keith,” Shiro sighed.

Keith tore the hat off his head and forced it onto Shiro’s. Shiro barely struggled.

“We’re not going to see anything,” Adam said. “We should have left earlier.”

“The only thing that matters is the skateboarding dog,” Keith pointed out.

Shiro adjusted the hat on his head. “Keith,” he said again, like Keith was wrong.

“He’s right,” Adam allowed.

Shiro rolled his eyes.

The Avenue was already crowded with laughing people, colourful lawn chairs, and paper streams of colour. A bar Keith had never actually visited had thrown its doors open, several hours early, to let folks crowd onto its rooftop and second-floor patio. Music was playing further away.

This was their fifth Pride, and it felt comfortable. Keith knew that when the parade finished they’d join the crowds jostling into shops and move towards vendors scattered down the Avenue and throughout what was generally known as the ‘historic quarter.’ Politicians would speak. Petitions would be waved. The beer gardens would be crowded. Adam would eat his weight in mini donuts, and Shiro would observe that this was more festival than—well, than Pride.

Keith thought: why couldn’t it be both?

It felt comfortable. It felt homely. Maybe because nothing had changed in the eight months he’d been gone. He hadn’t seen Shiro, or Adam, since Christmas; and before that, not since Shiro had dropped him off and Keith had stumbled into his residence orientation.

Unconsciously, he patted his sides, wondering if maybe _he_ had changed. This time last year, he had been quivering and anxious to leave. His phone’s lock screen had been a rainbow pattern, like it had been rebellion just to exist. Now, it was Lance knee-deep in snow with Hunk’s head peeking at him in the bottom right corner. And yet: he’d been dropped into the familiar—the Familiar—sandwiched in between Adam and Shiro like Keith and Hunk had lately sandwiched Lance (ah, this was where he had learned it from).

“Let’s go a little further,” Adam suggested, tugging Keith by his t-shirt. The three of them backed against a brick wall, allowing a laughing gaggle of parade-goers to squeeze by them on the crowded sidewalk. Keith looked at Adam and then they both looked at Shiro.

Shiro had wrestled his phone out of his pocket. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “I think Katie’s that way.”

Adam led the way.

 

***

 

(They were arguing in the kitchen.

Keith, nine-years-old and more jaded than the adults who loved him wanted to admit, knew it was his fault.

He hugged his knees.

“What about _Keith_?”

“He’ll be fine. Adam—“

“Yeah, we’ll all be just fine. Fucking peachy.”

“Come on.”

“Come on, what? What if you lose him, Takashi?”

Keith sighed. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He tried to memorize the sounds of their voices, the smell of Shiro’s apartment, the feel of his new favourite sweater wrapped around his shoulders.

Adam woke him, the light from the kitchen shining on his glasses and making him look unfamiliar and distant for a moment. Keith jerked. Adam leaned back.

“Hey buddy,” he said, soft. “What are you doing up?”

“I’m sitting,” Keith replied drowsily.

Adam smiled. He held out his hand. “Let’s get you back to bed, huh?”

In the kitchen, Keith could hear Shiro moving about, the clatter of dishes in the sink, the creak of the cupboards. Keith studied Adam’s hand, then looked away to scrub at his eyes. He frowned.

Adam withdrew his hand.

“You don’t have to go,” Keith muttered. He yawned despite himself. “I’ll go. You were here first.”

Adam was quiet, then he sat, sliding down the wall next to Keith. “It’s not an either/or,” Adam said. Keith blinked. “I didn’t leave because of you.”

Keith didn’t believe it. Adam smiled, like he knew.

“I left because Takashi’s a big idiot,” he continued, his voice tired and teasing. “But I haven’t left you.”

Keith, at nine, didn’t know what to make of this.

“While he’s gone, I thought you’d live with me.” Adam paused again. “What do you think?”

Keith blinked some more. He opened his mouth. He closed it. The ticking time bomb in the back of his mind stuttered, maybe froze.)

 

***

 

Keith kicked Pidge out of the lime green lawn chair that was obviously too small.

“Ugh,” she grumbled, kicking at his ankles as Keith sat, smirking. “Why did you come home, you big ass!”

“Hi Keith,” Matt said from the larger, darker chair next to them.

“Hi Matt,” Keith said.

“I’m going to sit on you,” Pidge all but growled.

Matt greeted Adam and Shiro and Keith yelled in protest as Pidge clambered onto his thighs, her fluffy ponytail whacking him in the face.

 

***

 

(Keith didn’t get to stay with Adam while Shiro was gone. He didn’t realize what a sore point that was for Adam, what an open wound it could be, until they were all much older.

“He’ll stay with us,” Colleen Holt said, smiling at him and then at Adam. “You’ll get to see him plenty.”

“Yeah,” Adam said.

Keith’s mouth was dry. Shiro was quiet in between them.

The Holts turned out to be his favourite foster parents, but he remembered Adam saying: “They won’t let me”; and he remembered the Holts’ grim faces and the sympathy they radiated. He remembered it every day for years.)

 

***

 

The Parade was...a parade. Pidge enjoyed it, squirming and looking at her parents with unrestrained glee when Buttercup the Skateboarding Bulldog rolled passed them.

Shiro and Adam, every time Keith looked back at them, were standing shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes, one would lean over to the other and try to say something over the noise.

“I wonder if that’s what divorce feels like,” Keith had mused one April morning to Lance and Hunk.

“What?” Hunk had said.

“Maybe,” Lance had allowed.

Keith focused on the parade. A condom packet whacked him in the face. Pidge howled with laughter until she fell to the ground, and Keith pulled himself out of her child-sized chair.

 

***

 

(The Incident.

Adam made Keith eat, and sleep, and do what he could of his homework, though they both all but lived in the hospital.

“I did this,” Sam said to Adam one night, while Keith pretended to sleep in a chair by Shiro’s bed. The machines hummed. Shiro’s heart kept on beating. “I shouldn’t have encouraged him. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Adam replied, sounding tired.

Keith sat up and pulled the blanket a nurse had given him tighter around his shoulders, startling Adam and Sam into silence. He studied Shiro.

“Do you want to come home?” Sam said eventually.

“No,” Keith replied. Then, just in case Shiro was listening: “Thank you.”

So Sam left them, brushing a hand over Keith’s head affectionately, clapping a hand on Adam’s shoulder in solidarity.

They waited.)

 

***

 

Keith took photos just so he would have something to send to Lance. Pidge and Matt snuck their way into a few, grinning and sticking their tongues out. Adam and Shiro took turns spying over his shoulder, ostensibly to see what he was typing but more, probably, to watch how Keith scowled at them and pulled away.

“Donuts,” Adam decided when the parade crowds began to disperse. He sniffed dramatically at the air. “I smell them.”

“I’ll come!” Pidge threw herself out of her chair.

“Come on, Pidgelet,” Keith said and tugged at her elbow.

Adam led the way, Shiro keeping the four of them close together while Matt hollered for them to bring him back a treat.

“Keith, Pidge,” Shiro said, bending to speak quietly between them. He smiled. “Happy Pride.”

Keith was almost nineteen.

 

***

 

(The day the adoption became official, Shiro sat on the couch and cried. Keith, almost twelve and feeling almost overwhelmed, sat next to him. Eventually, Shiro turned to him and pulled him into a tight hug and they sagged against each other and Keith let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding since the day he met Shiro.)

 

***

 

“Are they back together?” Pidge asked, rifling through Keith’s disorganized notes. She squinted at a page of statistics and then tossed it over her shoulder. It fluttered pathetically to the floor of Keith’s bedroom.

Keith, sprawled on his bed, let his phone drop to his chest. “I asked,” he said.

“And?”

“Shiro just said ‘Keith.’”

“Huh.”

Keith propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her. “What do you think?”

Pidge frowned. “I don’t know,” she admitted, then grimaced. “That probably means we should stop asking.”

“Ugh,” Keith said with feeling and flopped back again. He barely remembered what it had been like when Adam and Shiro had been _together_ rather than just his usually-civilized...people. He blinked up at his ceiling. His glow-in-the-dark stars, arranged in fantasy constellations and familiar like Shiro’s fried eggs, gazed blandly back at him. He picked up his phone again and then thought better of it. “You’re probably right.”

There was a sound like scattering paper and Keith knew—just knew—he had a mess to clean up. Pidge scrambled onto the bed next to him and sat, cross-legged and blinking down at him.

They watched each other.

“What?” Keith said eventually.

Pidge smiled down at him.

“ _What_?”

“So,” she said, dragging it out.

Keith groaned and pushed himself off his bed. “Don’t start.”

“I want to meet the boy.”

“The boy,” Keith echoed with no small amount of disgust. “The _boy_.”

“Yes, the boy.”

He narrowed his eyes. Pidge continued to smile at him, still sitting on his bed, but there was a sharp, sarcastic edge to her lips now that felt more familiar. She was teasing.

“Gremlin,” Keith declared.

“Shiro said you’re moving in with the boy.”

“Did he?” Keith turned away, arms crossed. He surveyed his bedroom: the books, still organized but collecting dust; his battered desk covered in photos and stickers; his heavy curtains, pulled aside to let the afternoon sun through. It felt cozy. He was happy to be home.

He missed Lance. Like there was something missing just under his skin so that he felt a little bit smaller, a little thinner.

When he looked back at Pidge, her smile was gone and her eyes were bright, studying him like he had done something puzzling.

“What?”

Pidge shrugged. “Nothing.” She picked at Keith’s bedspread. “Just. You seem. Different.”

Keith opened his mouth. He closed it. He shrugged.

“I am,” he said.

Pidge dug a finger into the sheets, frowning now. “It was kind of weird not having you around.”

“Likewise,” Keith gruffed. He returned to the bed, perching at the edge. He studied Pidge but she seemed to be lost in thought.

Matt had been gone, too. He was still kind of gone, drowning in his thesis work and rushing to and from conferences. The thought gave Keith a secondhand headache.

He found, suddenly, that he didn’t know what to say to the person who was the closest thing to a sister he had. Should he apologize? For leaving? For coming back with new people attached to his heart, his soul (because that’s what it was like, with Lance and Hunk; like his soul had grown three sizes just to make room for them)?

(At Christmas, Keith had cornered Shiro in the Holts’ kitchen and finally admitted that the boyfriend he was keeping secret from his roommate _was_ his roommate and Shiro had stared until Keith thought his eyes were going to fall out.

It became a thing at dinner.

Pidge had laughed and teased him mercilessly, and while he had been embarrassed at the time Keith now held it close to his heart: a warm memory.)

“My mom’s worried it’s too soon.”

Keith looked at her and Pidge shrugged, seeming sheepish.

”You know. Moving in together.”

”It’s not,” Keith said, with more confidence than he usually had. “Trust me. It’s not.”

Except nobody could trust him, really, because none of them _were_ him. Nobody got it, really, except Lance who was as caught up in— _it_ as Keith himself was; and maybe Hunk, who had been the reluctant witness to Them from the beginning. Pidge, her parents, _Shiro_ —none of them knew Lance, or knew Keith with Lance.

“I’m not saying that I think she’s right,” Pidge muttered.

“You wouldn’t bring it up if you didn’t.”

Maybe Keith snapped a bit. He didn’t always feel in control of his tone. But—

Pidge pushed herself off the bed.

“Fine,” she said with a shrug. “I want to meet him.”

Keith blinked at her back. “Sure.”

“Also, I think Adam and Shiro were arguing over who was going to give you the Sex Talk 2.0.”

Keith felt a little sick.

 

***

 

The image was a little fuzzy, but Lance’s eyes shone and his teeth flashed and it was just barely enough for Keith. He rolled onto his stomach and propped his phone against the wall that had served as his headboard for so many years. Tacked photos of Shiro and Adam and the Holts looked back at him.

“I feel kind of weird,” Lance was saying, tapping his chin thoughtfully. His hair was a mess, long enough that Keith could glimpse his curls coming in and he wanted to reach through and feel them. “You know? What if we get there and the first time we see it it’s disgusting. And stinky.”

“Then we’ll clean,” Keith replied and leaned his chin in one of his palms. “It’ll be our home, Lance. Our apartment.” He paused. “Ours. More or less.”

“More than in res.”

“Yeah.”

Lance smiled and seemed to lean closer to the screen. “One bedroom one bed, right?”

And maybe Keith blushed a little and maybe that was fine.

“Shiro said he’d help us,” Keith said, reaching idly to take a screenshot. Lance frowned as the notification popped up on his screen.

“Don’t do that without warning me,” he grumbled, running a hand over his hair. “I wasn’t ready!”

“I miss you,” Keith said by way of explanation.

Lance pulled a blanket around his shoulders. He seemed to shiver. The image stuttered and Keith had a moment of panic but then Lance was back.

“I miss you, too,” he said and it eased a little of the tension that had been building in Keith’s belly. A black ball of—missing someone.

It was July now. Lance would be nineteen in a few weeks. Keith wouldn’t be able to kiss him for his birthday.

He’d make up for it in August.

“I remember Christmas being easier,” Lance said, hugging his knees. The screen bounced as Lance shifted.

“Christmas was two weeks.”

“And earlier,” Lance mused. Keith struggled to think of what to say to that, then Lance was shaking himself and smiling again. “Wait, so what’s Shiro helping us with?”

“Oh. He wants to help with the move.”

“That’s nice of him.” Lance pulled the blanket tighter around him, seeming to relax—and then he tensed so abruptly his phone fell over and Keith got a great view of the ceiling.

“Lance?”

“I’m going to meet your brother.”

Keith smiled at Lance’s ceiling. “Yeah.”

Lance came back into view with a flurry of movement. He had been tugging on his hair and it was now even more ridiculous and Keith thought he would give anything to just touch him, just for a second.

“Oh man. Oh _boy_.” Lance shook his head. “It’ll be okay. I’m incredibly charming. He’s going to love me.”

Keith wanted to say something snarky, or funny, but instead he said: “Yeah.”

Lance watched him, frowning.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Are you okay?”

Keith’s mouth was forming around another “yeah” before the wheels in his head started turning and he really wondered: was he okay? Sitting on his old bed, surrounded by his old things and with Shiro’s voice coming from down the hall. He was home. His most vivid dreams started here: it was his grounding, important place.

“Lance!” came a voice on the other side. “Come on! Talk to your girlfriend later.”

Lance scowled. He twisted. “Fuck off, Veronica!” he yelled, and Keith guessed Veronica had already wandered away.

“We’ll talk later,” Keith said when Lance was looking back at him. “Try and call me before you go to sleep?”

Something twisted over Lance’s face, concerned and a little heavy.

So Keith smiled.

“Okay,” Lance said finally. “I’ll talk to you later. Love you.” It came out in a rush, just in case Veronica came back, and he ended the call before Keith could say anything back—but Keith appreciated it all the same.

He rolled onto his back and stared up at his stars.

Shiro was quiet now, though Keith thought he heard him shuffling around—doing something.

Keith closed his eyes.

“How’s Lance?”

Keith frowned. He pressed the heel of his hands to his closed eyes. “Fine,” he said eventually.

He felt the dip in the bed as Shiro sat. Keith shifted over and let his hands drop back to the bed. When he opened his eyes, Shiro was watching him with a small smile. Keith leaned up on his elbows.

“What?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Keith opened his mouth and then thought better of it. He took in two deep breaths, felt the swell of his lungs and imagined a rush of cool air through his chest. He looked away when Shiro didn’t.

“Talk about what?” He dropped back against his pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

Instead of answering, Shiro patted his knee and stood.

 

***

 

(“I just don’t think they’d get it,” Lance had said, rubbing soft circles against Keith’s elbow. Red was running on her wheel and it squeaked, squeaked, squeaked into the nighttime stillness. Keith’s eyes were heavy, his hands sore from practice and from clutching pens and highlighters too tightly.

“Yeah,” he had replied, his mouth dry.

“Even Hunk was worried,” Lance continued, his lips ghosting over Keith’s forehead. He was quiet for a moment, and Keith closed his eyes and felt the rise and fall of Lance’s chest, heard his heartbeat. Lance’s arms tightened around him. “I’m scared, sometimes.”

Yeah, Keith could hear it. He had seen it in the early fluster in Lance’s voice and cheeks, and he had felt it in his own late night panics and trembling hands. Sometimes, they rode so high Keith could see the whole world, the whole future opening up in front of them. Sometimes, he saw the crash that seemed inevitable; saw how young they were, and how much could change in days, and how little they could be like themselves in a year or two.

He lifted his head and pressed a clumsy kiss to Lance’s jaw, or more his chin, and Lance laughed so that they both shook. Keith smiled.

“We’ll take our steps when we take our steps,” he said, with more finality and confidence than he really felt but he saw a spark of something warm and soothed in Lance’s eyes and that was all he wanted, really. “Tell your moms we’re moving in together when you’re ready.”

Lance smiled and they buried their worries in each other and that was enough.)

 

***

 

Shiro wanted to camp. Adam put his foot down so they booked a hotel. Keith seized the opportunity to drive.

The two hours to the mountains reminded him of learning to drive, with Shiro passed out in the back seat and Adam intermittently holding on for dear life.

“You drive too fast,” Adam said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith dismissed.

Shiro snored.

“You know this isn’t normal, right?” Keith drummed his fingers against the steering wheel once. He saw Adam shift in his seat in the corner of his eye.

“He works hard,” Adam said, deflecting.

Keith grunted.

When Shiro woke up to the too-familiar sound of _The Master and Margarita_ (Adam and Keith’s favourite audiobook), he groaned.

“Why do I go anywhere with you two?”

Adam shushed him.

They stopped just inside the national park and Keith listened to Adam and Shiro call each other variations of “old.” He shrugged and wandered to the edge of the highway to take photos of the looming mountains. Hunk responded almost immediately with starry-eyed emojis.

When Keith trotted back to the car, Adam had planted himself in the driver’s seat. He tried to howl his outrage, but Shiro shoved him into the backseat and took control of the radio. Static, mostly, replaced their book.

“No more Bulgakov,” Shiro insisted when Keith started to complain.

“He’s the least depressing Russian,” Keith said, attempting authority.

“Wow.”

Their hotel was...a rocky mountain hotel. Keith tapped at the faux wood lining every doorway while Shiro checked them in and Adam parked. With the nasally sound of pop music overhead and the smell of polish surrounding him, Keith felt a little like a tourist. Half his brain was insulted.

“We are tourists,” Shiro said when Keith mentioned this.

The other half of Keith’s brain was offended.

They walked to the township, Adam and Shiro amicably bickering about what they’d do with their weekend (“No hikes.” “Then _why_ are we here?” “Fresh air, Takashi.” “Fresh—“). Keith walked just behind them, hands in his sweater pockets and eyes on their shoulders. He was almost as tall as Adam, now, though Shiro continued to loom over both of them. Occasionally, they would look back and Keith would feel strangely startled at how easy it was to meet their eyes as they tried, and failed, to drag him into conversation. As they drifted into the late afternoon crowds, he shuffled closer and wondered, just briefly, if they would be different the next time he came home; or if he would simply see them differently (simply, like a blink or a misstep).

It was hot. The mountains loomed over the township. There was smoke on the air, and Keith couldn’t tell if it came from wildfires or campfires or both.

A tour bus emptied a little in front of them, spitting out a crowd of dazed and gaping tourists.

They walked.

In the evening, Keith and Shiro shared a pint of rocky road and Adam made a point of telling them, regularly, that that much ice cream was disgusting. They watched the sun set. At one point, Keith dozed off on their room’s tiny couch and woke up to Shiro throwing a blanket over him.

“What’re we doing tomorrow?” Keith said around a yawn.

Shiro smiled. “Who knows?”

Keith huffed a laugh and fell back asleep.

He dreamt that he and Lance were eating dim sum with Shiro. Adam pushed a cart overflowing with dried flowers and emptied a bowl onto Shiro’s lap. Lance smiled so bright the whole room seemed to flash. Dream-Keith remembered, slowly, that he needed to warn Pidge not to overfeed Red.

 

***

 

“You didn’t do anything?” Hunk sounded alarmed, maybe offended.

“Not really,” Keith said. He adjusted his grip on his phone and squatted to peer into Red’s cage. She was shuffling about, her fur seeming to bounce, and relaxed the moment Keith slipped his hand under her and scooped her out. “We just walked around. Ate.”

“I guess that sounds nice,” Hunk said. He huffed. “I don’t know. I thought you’d go looking for a moose or something.”

Keith snorted.

“I’m not really joking!”

He walked back to his bed and sat at the edge. He let Red waddle up and down his thigh.

“Hey,” Hunk said after a period of quiet. “Are you really okay with Lance not telling his family?”

Keith stroked a gentle line down Red’s back. “Yeah.”

“I can talk to him.”

“About what?” Red settled by his knee, breathing steadily. “Lance knows his family, Hunk.”

“What’s he scared of, exactly? I can’t figure it out.” There was something touching about Hunk’s muted frustration.

“I get it,” Keith said. “And—I trust him.”

Hunk made a noise that Keith couldn’t decipher.

 

***

 

Colleen decided a barbeque was in order, a week out from Keith’s return to university.

“Tell Adam there’ll be corn,” she said with a wag of a finger that seemed to stun Shiro into silence.

When they called Adam and told him, he heaved an enormous sigh that made the speaker of Shiro’s phone crackle. “Well,” he said. “If there’s _corn_.”

Adam was two cobs in when Shiro and Keith arrived.

“It seems dangerous to pick an apartment without actually seeing it,” Sam said, squinting at the grill. Matt elbowed him out of the way and Sam and Keith stumbled back together. “Good luck.”

“I think it’ll be fine,” Keith said, shoving his hands in his pockets. He fought to keep his shoulders from hunching, to keep his skin clear of the tingling embarrassment that always seemed to start in his elbows. “We had a friend check it over for us.”

“It might feel strange, after residence,” Sam continued, musing. He and Keith leaned around to watch Matt rescue a hamburger patty from burning. Behind them, Pidge was counting Adam’s cobs loudly. Adam ignored her, just as loudly.

“What do you mean?” Keith asked, half-distracted.

“Part of what can make a residence so important for a first-year is the enforced community,” Sam said. “You made friends. You had neighbours. You were all at the same point in your lives and education, more or less.”

“I guess.”

“A lot of people thrive with that sort of structure.” Sam paused and Keith looked up in time to see him smile, his eyes crinkling. “You seemed to.”

Had he?

Thrived?

“Oh,” Keith said, feeling lame and a little empty.

“And it’s a big step in your relationship,” Sam continued. He leaned towards Keith, like he was about to share a secret. “Colleen is just worried. Try to be patient with her.”

In the months he’d been home, in the months he’d been away from Lance, Colleen hadn’t voiced her worries to his face once. Keith had heard it all second-hand, from Matt and Pidge and now from Sam. It made him wonder if he was a regular bit of dinner gossip, or if Colleen got caught up in her anxieties the same way Hunk did and just—ranted. Thinking too long about it made him feel both cold and exposed.

“Okay,” he said when he couldn’t think of anything better.

“Leave him alone,” Matt said as he whirled around, handing Keith a hamburger. The plate wobbled as Keith took it. “Residence is gross and suffocating. I don’t blame you for getting out ASAP.”

“Thanks.”

But was that what he was doing?

“Someone needs to stop Adam,” Shiro muttered, coming closer to ostensibly stare at the grill. Matt shoved him away, too.

“Don’t invite the vegetarian next time,” Keith decided. “He’s going to die of corn poisoning.”

“I hear you!” Adam bellowed.

 

***

 

“Can’t sleep?” Lance asked around a yawn.

Keith curled tighter against his bed, his blankets tossed aside and the stars on his ceiling glowing. His face felt sweaty where he pressed his phone but if he closed his eyes he could pretend that Lance was right there, breathing and warm and comforting.

Maybe he was too dependent.

He shoved the thought away.

“Yeah.”

Lance hummed. “Okay.”

Keith closed his eyes and let out a long, shuddering breath.

“I’ll stay right here,” Lance said into the ensuing quiet, his voice heavy with sleep. Keith could see him, drifting off and cradling his phone close to his ear.

“Okay,” Keith whispered.

In a matter of minutes Lance’s breaths had evened and slowed. Bit by bit, some of the anxiety uncurled from Keith’s belly and he sagged against his bed. He saw his stars against his eyelids and wondered, as he fell asleep, what Lance would say to putting glow-in-the-dark stars on their bedroom ceiling.

In the morning, his first thought as he woke was: _their bedroom_.

 

***

 

Adam and Shiro were being weird.

Adam, leaning against the kitchen counter with a treasured coffee cup in his hands, was a familiar sight. Keith had spent many drowsy mornings wandering in on Adam and Shiro chatting amicably, or bickering bitterly, before one or both of them swept him away. It was another piece of home, valued and steadying.

Keith knew something was different the moment he walked into the kitchen.

“Keith,” Adam greeted, setting his mug down. “Feeling ready? All packed?”

“I hope so,” Keith replied slowly, eyeing Adam and then Shiro. “What’s going on?”

They didn’t look at each other.

“I came to say goodbye,” Adam said with a sniff. “Teach me to show care. Or affection.”

“Right,” Keith muttered, his temples throbbing. “Don’t tell me.”

“Nothing to tell,” Shiro lied. That liar.

Keith finished the pot of coffee.

Shiro reluctantly agreed to let him drive as long as he promised “not to drive like an idiot.”

“I don’t drive like an idiot,” Keith retorted.

“You’re going to die,” Adam observed.

“I’m a good driver!”

Adam pulled him into a hug, crushing Keith’s face against his shoulder. Keith’s response was stuttered but he was clutching the back of Adam’s shirt before he was really conscious of the instinct. Adam laughed. Keith scowled. They didn’t let go.

“It was nice to have you home, kiddo,” Adam said softly.

Keith nodded and they parted.

“Drive safely,” Adam said, his hands in his pockets. He rocked on the balls of his feet.

“We will,” Shiro replied and then there it was again, unspoken but tense. They didn’t seem able to really look at each other, let alone talk.

Keith paused, watching with Shiro’s car between them. He toyed with Shiro’s keys. Because he didn’t know better, a little warm ball of hope floated about his chest.

“Okay,” Shiro said finally, turning away so abruptly he might have fallen over if he wasn’t himself. “Let’s get going.”

Keith gave Adam a final wave.

 

***

 

(Keith, eighteen and already exhausted, didn’t want to be roped into orientation icebreakers. He hesitated, pulling back from his group and hunching his shoulders like he could hide and sneak away without anyone noticing. Instead, his orientation leader shoved him to the front of every game: bean-bag toss, charades, a three-legged race.

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope,” Lucy said and held out a length of rope that Keith thought was ridiculous.

“I think it’ll be fun,” Nico told Keith and snatched the rope from him, promptly tying their legs together.

Keith didn’t like it.

“Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled.

And maybe he dragged Nico along a little bit, hoping to get this new humiliation done and over with. They won. Keith kept Nico upright. And maybe when the mismatched second-place team came up it was like fate intervening.

Keith was a hopeless romantic like that.

“Dude,” said a boy with bright blue eyes and hair that seemed undeniably fluffy. “Do you know how a three-legged race works?”

Keith stared. “I guess I don’t really care,” he grumbled and tore the rope off his and Nico’s legs partway through Nico’s tired celebration.

Keith ditched the rest of orientation, returning only to get his roommate assignment.

“Not very collegial!” Lucy observed as she handed him his keys.

And maybe when Keith opened the door it really was like fate intervening.

“Oh good,” the fluffy-haired boy drawled. “ _You_.”

Keith was a hopeless romantic like that.)

 

***

 

They found Lance in the bathroom, hanging a shower curtain covered in poop emojis.

”No,” Keith said.

Lance grunted. “Go away! It’s already up.”

”Are you serious? That thing’s awful.”

“It’s hilarious!”

“How!”

“This is a warm reunion,” Shiro said around a yawn and surprised Keith into blushing and Lance into falling into the bathtub.

Lance, once Keith had rescued him, shook Shiro’s flesh hand for too long.

”Okay,” Keith said, pulling their hands apart. “You’ve met. Introduction over.”

Shiro smiled, obviously _too_ amused and Keith could already hear Adam’s laughter in his ears.

“Is that the first thing you unpacked?” Shiro asked, pointing at the offensive, half-hung shower curtain.

Lance shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “Uh, no. It’s the first thing I bought.”

“And you wanted to get it up before Keith got here.”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“I’m going to tear it down,” Keith muttered.

And that was how Shiro met Lance. Or, how Lance met Shiro.

Then, Lance greeted Red with his typical enthusiasm and kissed her four times. They gave her new water and watched her huff her way back to her favourite sleep spot and Shiro insisted they leave her on the kitchen counter and go find lunch.

“A long drive is tiring, hungry work,” Shiro told them.

“You slept the whole way,” Keith said.

“Well. I have to block out your awful driving somehow.”

Keith didn’t like this running joke because it was _a goddamn lie_.

So they stood outside their new building and Lance gave Keith his set of keys with surprisingly little ceremony and Keith ripped a second key off the little loop and handed it to Shiro who took it with that stupid smile and it was very overwhelming, even if it happened in dappled August sunlight on the quiet street where Keith, now, supposedly, lived with Lance—

“What’s around here?”

“Huh?” Lance said. He was eloquent, and handsome, and Keith realized one of them had grown and it wasn’t _Lance_ , who was here, in the flesh.

His heart stuttered.

He smiled.

“I said,” Shiro said with patience, looking between them like maybe, sometimes, Keith looked between him and Adam. “What’s around here? Anything good?”

“Campus is over there,” Lance said, pointing. He grimaced, adjusted. “Uh. No. That way.”

“I meant for food.”

“Oh.”

Shiro smiled. “Let’s walk around.”

Shiro led the way, humming to himself and walking just ahead. It felt like an invitation, or some kind of polite, irritating gesture, that he wasn’t looking at them. It was enough, and Shiro probably knew this, to inspire the bravery Keith needed to take Lance’s hand. It was Lance who twisted their fingers together but he wouldn’t meet Keith’s eye. Though, maybe, that was okay because Keith couldn’t quite get the heat in his cheeks under control. He tried to remember if it was this difficult and uncomfortable at the beginning, if they had been this flustered, but it was hard to get his thoughts in order beyond remembering that this was “soon” and “fast.”

They let go when they came to one of the bustling streets just off the arts district. Shiro tapped his chin thoughtfully and then, finally, turned to look at them. They let go of each other a moment too late and Keith had to suffer a lift of his brother’s eyebrows and a twitch to his lips that made him want say a pile of rude things.

“Any thoughts yet?” Shiro prompted.

“Uh,” Lance said. Maybe “uh” was becoming an important part of his vocabulary. Maybe it was a surprising Shiro Effect.

“There’s a McDonald’s over there,” Keith said.

Keith decided he wouldn’t tell Adam how Shiro’s eyes lit up.

Shiro ate three Big Macs and maybe enjoyed it too much. Lance ate all of Keith’s fries but Keith drank his pop so everything balanced out.

They ate in mostly silence. Keith was afraid Lance was going to vibrate out of his skin. He wanted to tell him to relax, that this was just Keith’s annoying brother, that this was just Shiro and he didn’t bite, that this was the same guy who wrote stupid messages on Keith’s boxes of highlighters.

But Shiro was also—Shiro.

(“You can’t imagine what he’s done for me,” Keith had said, tracing idle shapes against Lance’s back.

And Lance had smiled sleepily at him and said: “He’s your family.”

And Keith had just nodded and thought: _yes,_ and yes meant _everything_.)

“I was thinking,” Shiro said. “I should take you to IKEA or something.”

Lance crammed four fries into his mouth.

“What?” Keith said.

“You have no furniture.”

Lance choked.

“I guess that’s true,” Keith muttered.

Shiro may have kicked him under the table.

“You got in last night, right?” Shiro said. “Lance?”

Lance cleared his throat. “Uh! Yup. Yeah. I did. Or, uh, more like yesterday afternoon.”

The wheels in Keith’s head whirred. “Did you—did you sleep on the floor?”

Lance prodded at Keith’s mostly empty fry container. “No,” he said, slowly. “I, uh. Well. I went to res.”

Keith blinked. Lance shrugged.

“I pretended to be Hunk and slept in his room.”

“What?”

“No one ID’d me or anything! And now Hunk’s all, like, checked in.”

Shiro hid his laughter with a well-timed cough.

“The second year floors aren’t that much nicer, by the way,” Lance said as he dug the last of the fry crumbs from the container. “Still dirty. Still loud. How is that possible?”

“It’s a good thing you two moved out, then,” Shiro said, leaning against the table.

Lance froze, like he had just remembered Shiro was still there and still listening. Keith pried the container from his hand.

“So,” Shiro said eventually. “IKEA?”

 

***

 

(The hardest part about moving away from home was figuring out how little he had to actually move. Books, yes. Clothes. Toiletries. Pictures. Everything else would stay, for when he came home.

The second hardest part about moving away from home was his roommate and his bad taste in music.

“Is that from your room?” Ryan F. bellowed, his voice echoing around the bathroom.

Keith thought about punching a sink.

The roar of pop music was even worse in the hall and drowned out the shriek of the bathroom door behind him. Down the hall, Nico had poked his head out of his room and looked a combination of horrified and impressed that Keith just didn’t understand.

”I think Lance left!” Nico yelled.

“What?”

“I said: I THINK Lance LEFT!”

Sure enough, when Keith stormed into their room, Lance had left his laptop hooked up to three sets of speakers, no doubt pilfered from others on the floor. Stuck to the screen was a passive aggressive note, stolen from _Keith’s desk_ , about finding a new alarm if he was “going to get up at the ass-crack of the morning.”

Keith unplugged the speakers. The glorious peace of a Bruno-Mars-less silence rang in his ears. Someone in the hall yelled “thank fuck!”

“Ass-crack of the morning,” he grumbled, “What does that even mean?”

“I keep telling Lance you’re going to snap one day,” Ryan said when Keith re-emerged. He slammed his fist into his open palm for emphasis. “Just—fucking beat him. To a pulp.”

Keith squinted at him. “That seems extreme,” he said eventually, and shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to get on with his day.

And maybe he had something to do with the way Lance’s hair turned blue the next day.

And maybe the way Lance wore that blue with pride and a little too much flair had something to do with the way Keith’s stomach started to flip over when Lance walked into their room, or walked out of it, or opened his big mouth and smiled his big smile.)

 

***

 

If Keith was being perfectly honest, he had romantic, foolish ideas about what his and Lance’s first visit to IKEA would look like. And, yeah, Shiro didn’t usually factor into those fantasies. The last thing Keith wanted was his big brother hanging around while he and Lance tried to pick their—pick their—

“Do you want me to go away for a bit?” Shiro said.

“It’s fine,” they replied together. Except that Lance still couldn’t look at Keith and Keith couldn’t look at Lance and all that made it really difficult to pick a mattress together.

“I’m going to go look at...stuff over there.”

“It’s fine,” Keith managed through his teeth.

Shiro just patted his shoulder and walked away. Keith could hear him mispronouncing everything as he went and he suddenly wished Adam was here to keep Shiro’s weird sense of humour in check.

Lance prodded at the mattress in front of them.

“How big should it be?” Keith asked.

Lance shrugged. “I don’t know. Big enough?”

“What’s _big enough_?”

“I don’t know!” Lance threw his hands in the air. His blush was back and his lips were twitchy and suddenly all Keith could think about was how they hadn’t kissed each other yet and how it had been _months_ — “Big enough for cuddling! Big enough for—for sleeping and…” Lance trailed off.

Keith looked at his feet.

“So, like, a double at least.”

“Maybe a queen,” Keith muttered.

“Oh. Yeah. Then we’d fit Hunk, too.”

Keith looked at him so fast he thought he felt something break in his neck.

And Lance—Lance, Lance, Lance—grinned at him and giggled.

Giggled.

And Keith snapped and they leaned against each other, trying and failing to hide their laughter until they were both breathless.

Shiro found them a half hour later, bickering about which of two impossibly-named mattresses they liked more.

“Go with the cheaper one,” Shiro suggested and sat on another mattress and finished his ice cream.

 

***

 

(“I think Natalie likes me,” Lance said, sounding thoughtful.

Keith’s hands twitched so he shoved them in his pockets.

“Uh huh,” Hunk replied. Keith didn’t need to turn around to know Hunk was ignoring Lance in favour of eyeing the soup special.

“I’m serious!”

“Go on.”

“She smiles at me a lot,” Lance said. “She—laughs at my jokes.”

Keith snorted.

“What! What, Mullet! Go on!”

“Guys,” Hunk said. “It’s food time. Fight on your own time.”

The line shuffled forward.

“It’s not a mullet,” Keith said over his shoulder.

“I know mullet when I see a mullet, Mullet!”

“That word loses meaning every time you say it.”

“Were you born this annoying or did a radioactive centipede bite you?”

Hunk’s response was visceral. “Gross! Dude! Just—gross!”

Keith refused to let Lance see his smile.)

 

***

 

Shiro was asleep on a pile of Lance’s pillows in what would be their living room. When Keith blinked he saw afterimages of his own fantasies: overstuffed bookshelves, a couch that sucked you right in so you couldn’t leave, photos of them—

They tucked a blanket around Shiro. Lance sighed and stretched and the familiar scrunch of his face was enough to wake the ache in Keith’s chest that had been following him since they had set goodbye months ago. He swallowed. His brother snored on the floor and he wondered, briefly, if he should summon up the will to lecture Shiro about working too hard, but.

But.

“What?” Lance whispered.

Keith shook his head. “Come on.”

It was easy, like finding the right puzzle piece or enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning or curling up in the corner with a good book or that last goodbye kiss they’d snuck—it was easy to take Lance’s hand, and easy to tug Lance along behind him, and easy to cross the dark distance of their little hallway towards what would be their little bedroom, to close the door and press Lance against it and to feel (just feel) Lance’s arms around him and Lance’s breath against his lips.

“Finally,” Lance sighed. “I’ve been waiting for a reunion kiss for _ages._ ”

“ _You_ could have kissed _me_.”

“No way,” Lance sniffed. “I’m a gentleman. I’m—“

Keith kissed him, just to feel the words die in his mouth, just to revel in the way Lance clung to him, just to wonder at this new first kiss in their new bedroom.

“I am _not_ fooling around while your brother is asleep down the hall,” Lance said.

Keith laughed and tried and failed to hide the sound in Lance’s neck but he got a lovely whiff of the distinct Lance smell that had haunted his dreams for months (warm, and soft, and invasive, and comforting—so much like Lance Keith wasn’t always sure it wasn’t just some psychic imagining of what his subconscious thought Lance _should_ smell like).

They decided where their bed should be by tearing into their favourite of the sheet sets they had bought (“Sale!” Lance had crowed. “Perfect!” and Keith had said, shocked: “How many do we need?”) and laying out a bed cover under the window. They lay down together, gingerly until Lance laughed and gave up trying to keep the sheet straight, and Keith threw the blanket over them and Lance kissed him goodnight.

It took a long time to fall asleep with the moonlight casting shadows over their walls and Lance blinking so close to him and Keith imagining, because how could he not, what this room would like when they finished making it theirs. He wondered, as he watched Lance fall asleep, why he should ever have been scared of something that felt so right.

Keith woke first with Lance’s head heavy on his chest and their legs tangled together. It was still early: orange morning light dappled the ceiling now and he thought he could hear birds. Actual birds.

He blinked. He sniffed.

He frowned.

Coffee. He could smell it.

Lance grunted when Keith got up (or rolled away and scrambled gracelessly to his feet), but his quiet snores returned a moment later.

In the kitchen, Shiro greeted him with a steaming mug of coffee.

“Almost forgot,” Shiro said cheerily and slapped a comically large bow on the coffee maker sitting like a miracle on Keith’s kitchen counter.

Keith clutched his mug. “What.”

“My housewarming gift to you,” Shiro replied, beaming. “Try not to murder your kidneys.”

“What,” Keith said again.

“Lance seems nice,” Shiro continued. “But—do I make him nervous or is he always like that?”

Keith stepped forward and tore the bow off the coffee maker.

“I liked that.”

“It’s weird,” Keith muttered. He set his mug and the bow down.

“Yes. But also funny.”

“Shiro,” Keith started but the rest wouldn’t come. Shiro just smiled at him.

“You’re welcome,” he said and the quiet, romantic part of Keith thought he couldn’t figure out what exactly he was trying to thank Shiro for.

(—and it meant _everything_.)

A hug seemed inadequate but it was all Keith had, but maybe he held on a little too tight because Shiro made a soft noise that sounded a little like “oof.”

 

***

 

(Shiro stared.

The kitchen smelled like Sam’s Special Christmas Stuffing.

Shiro stared some more.

“What?” Keith grumbled.

“You can’t date your roommate,” Shiro said.

Keith scowled. “Except that I am.” He paused. “And it’s going great, okay!”

“You _can’t_ date your roommate, Keith. That’s—not a good idea.”

“He rescued a hamster, Shiro! In the park!”

“The hamster you brought home?”

“Yes. Her name is Red.”

“Are you—“

“I like him, Shiro.”

Shiro squinted at him. “I mean, obviously. If you’re _dating him_.”

“I like him!”

“And what if it goes badly, Keith?”

And Keith didn’t like that tone. He knew it too well. He knew it from Shiro talking him down from his day-to-day outrage. He knew it from Shiro encouraging him to never, ever give up on himself. He knew it from—

Well. It didn’t belong here.

“It won’t,” Keith said with a confidence that, maybe, he hadn’t had until that moment.

Shiro blinked. He opened his mouth. Closed it. He walked to the Holts’ fridge and grabbed one of the imported beers that he and Sam (and lately Keith) liked (“It smells and tastes like hard-boiled ass,” Adam insisted and Matt was inclined to agree) and cracked it open.

All to buy himself time, Keith knew, before he turned around and said: “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Keith said, surprise making his lungs tight.

Shiro tapped at the can. “When can I meet him?”

Keith stared. “What?”

“I said: when can I meet him?”)

 

***

 

“I mean,” Hunk said. “I don’t get it, but I like it. It feels like a nice way to start the year.”

“It’s September,” Keith said.

“The school year, obviously. Come on, Keith. Keep up.”

“I didn’t go last year,” Lance said, rubbing his thumb over Keith’s knuckles in a thoughtful, unconscious gesture that felt a lot like home. “Though, how was I supposed to know Pride happens in freaking September here?”

“I didn’t know either,” Keith said.

“I always kind of thought Pride was this universal thing,” Hunk mused. “June or bust!”

“Pride is pride,” Keith replied.

“That seems pretty universal,” Lance added with a grin.

They joined the jostling crowds and huddled close together and waited for the parade to begin, and while they waited Hunk and Keith teased Lance about meeting Shiro and empathized with Lance’s frustrations about telling his family (“Too soon, my ass!” Lance muttered and Keith’s heart swelled. “I’m just glad you finally told them,” Hunk said and patted Lance’s shoulder) and Keith leaned in to kiss Lance’s cheek and whisper: “Happy Pride.”

Lance’s answering smile was everything.

 

***

 

They found an abandoned oversized mug in the front entrance of their apartment building, covered in dancing hamsters and beret-wearing owls, and Lance decided to “rescue” it. They washed it. They (or Lance, to Keith’s horror) filled it with coffee beans, and then they arranged the flags in it and set it on the makeshift mantle by their front door.

They stepped back and considered it, side-by-side.

“Not bad,” Lance said.

“Looks good,” Keith agreed.

And he thought that his rainbow alongside Lance’s red and blue made a very nice first decoration in their home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah in the city “where i was born” pride, obvs, happens in june but in the city i live now pride happens in september so lmao sorry keith
> 
> ORIGINALLY this was written from Shiro’s POV about Keith and had a lot more detail re: Shiro and Adam and the Holts but I realized 4000 words in that this au is about Keith and Lance and Hunk and rewrote the whole thing and this is what you get. Lance’s family loves him and he has a really positive relationship with all of them true to canon, don’t worry, they’re just worried and I wanted Keith’s relationship with his family re: Lance and moving in together to be like a hinted mirror of what is/was going on on Lance’s end.
> 
> aldkjfalkfjaldf ok i’ll stop talking now title comes from you are a tourist by death cab for cutie and i’ve been listening to a lot of death cab for cutie


End file.
